UN News stories

01 August 2015 – The top UN children's representative in Myanmar reminded candidates from more than 80 political parties running in historic elections 99 days from today “to make new commitments for children” to improve spending for health, education and social welfare that remains the lowest in the Southeast Asian region.

31 July 2015 – Oscar-winning actress and United Nations refugee agency Special Envoy, Angelina Jolie, travelled yesterday to Myanmar’s Kachin state, where internally displaced persons (IDPs), including a number of women, told her their stories.

31 July 2015 – Having achieved its “core objective” of scaling up global action to tackle the Ebola outbreak in West Africa, the United Nations Mission for Ebola Emergency Response will officially wind down today, transferring its role to the World Health Organization (WHO), which just announced that an experimental vaccine being tested in Guinea appears to be highly effective and could be a “game changer.”

31 July 2015 – United Nations Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon and the UN special envoy on the Middle East have strongly condemned today's arson attack in the West Bank that killed a Palestinian child and left the child's parents severely injured.

31 July 2015 – The United Nations Children’s Fund (UNICEF) warned today that the more than 70,000 Liberian children whose births were not recorded during the Ebola outbreak may be unable to access basic health and social services, obtain identity documents, and risk the danger of being trafficked or illegally adopted.

30 July 2015 – The Director-General of the United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization (UNESCO) voiced deep concern today over the reported killing of two Iraqi journalists in Mosul.

30 July 2015 – United Nations Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon today praised a Paraguayan man whose “profound vision that the forces of animosity and hatred in our world are no match for the power of the human spirit” led to the creation of the International Day of Friendship, which falls on July 30 every year.

30 July 2015 – Thirteen additional countries need to ratify an agreement brokered by the United Nations Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO) to combat illegal fishing by blocking ports to ships known or believed to be carrying illicit catches that account for more than 15 per cent of global output, the agency said today.

30 July 2015 – Recognizing that wild animals and plants are an “irreplaceable part of the natural systems of the Earth,” the United Nations General Assembly today urged its Member States to take decisive steps to prevent, combat and eradicate the illegal trade in wildlife, “on both the supply and demand sides.”

30 July 2015 – The Secretary-General’s Special Envoy for Syria, Staffan de Mistura, has been tasked with reinvigorating an inclusive political process towards ending the crisis in the country, based on the aims set out in the 2012 Geneva Communiqué, which was adopted by the first international conference on the issue and has been endorsed by the UN security Council.